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For the same reason that a chair shouldn't be worth a house: I just don't think the two are equivalent in value.

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The point of these penalties is to hurt the companies that tolerate such activity to convince them not to.

If we're talking about a company in which such sort of behaviour is tolerated, sure, the fine should be higher than if it's directed at a middle-class person. In fact, I'm all for fines to be proportional to the means of the person being fined, like taxes.

So I see your point.

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No you didn't.

I did. I pointed out that one is an objective measure and the other a subjective one.

Edited by jsfisher:

Edited to remove link to moderated content, but otherwise allow the conversation to continue.

__________________"Yes. But we'll hit theirs as well. We have reserves. Attack!"

It seems like you're dancing around the issue. When I point out that the logic you're using would mean that we should never challenge other people's religious beliefs, you wonder why I bring it up. When I explain why by going back to your original comment, suddenly you forget about my point and ask me to get back on topic.

Does your logic apply to all beliefs or no? Is it rude and, I've heard, dehumanising to tell a theist that you think their god doesn't exist?

__________________"Yes. But we'll hit theirs as well. We have reserves. Attack!"

For the same reason that a chair shouldn't be worth a house: I just don't think the two are equivalent in value.

Depends on the chair, I am sure you can find chairs and houses that the chair is legitimately worth more.

As for it being a house, of course it isn't. The law is only in new york city and you are simply not going to be able to buy a house in NYC for $125000, so why even bring that up?

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If we're talking about a company in which such sort of behaviour is tolerated, sure, the fine should be higher than if it's directed at a middle-class person. In fact, I'm all for fines to be proportional to the means of the person being fined, like taxes.

Almost as if we should let the jury decide. Like the law you hate does. It just sets a maximum for harassment based on gender.

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I did. I pointed out that one is an objective measure and the other a subjective one.

I don't have the medical records of my coworkers to know if they are males, females or something else medically. I only know what they want to be called and how they present themselves. Where do you work that you have that kind of highly detailed personal medical information about all your coworkers?

I don't know the financial circumstances of this fellow who gave birth the other day, but I wonder if he's eligible for the WIC program. Should he be? That program is only available to women. Maybe we need to end this unconstitutional discrimination.

(For those unfamiliar, the WIC program is meant to ensure that poor children can get good nutrition. That begins in the womb. It provides food money to pregnant women, and to caregivers of small children. There is no provision in the law for pregnant men.)

It seems like you're dancing around the issue. When I point out that the logic you're using would mean that we should never challenge other people's religious beliefs, you wonder why I bring it up. When I explain why by going back to your original comment, suddenly you forget about my point and ask me to get back on topic.

Does your logic apply to all beliefs or no? Is it rude and, I've heard, dehumanising to tell a theist that you think their god doesn't exist?

We're not talking about challenging beliefs or being forced to believe something that you don't.

I'll put it to you another way, since you want to drag creationism and religion into the discussion. I'm a foul-mouthed atheist. Close friends of mine are devout Christians. Not bible-thumping evangelicals, but Christians nonetheless. One of these friends is offended by cursing. Personally, I think it's a silly thing to be offended over. But out respect for my friend, I do not curse when I am in her presence.

Now I suppose I could make a principled stand and challenge her beliefs every time I feel like cursing, but I find it easier to just be respectful.

While I am firmly in the camp of calling people whatever they prefer and leaving it at that, I'm also in agreement that the stated penalty for "harassment" is too steep if it is applied uniformly every time someone says the wrong thing. But is it? Is it a minimum penalty? Would the person in question think it harassment if it's a misunderstanding? Would a case ever occur here? Would it not make a difference whether one misunderstands a situation or whether one, as the original poster implies he would, insists on it on the basis of some perceived notion of rightness and truth that overrides the ideas of others?

We're in a very abstract territory here, it seems. We're all presented at times with situations that make us uncomfortable, about which we would at least secretly want to make nasty comments. Sometimes those comments may be warranted, and sometimes not. Sometimes we understand what's going on and sometimes we don't. Both times, I think, it's likely they can be omitted without hardship. Why should one actually give a damn? If a person with a vagina wants to be called a man, how can you know what's going on in that mind, or that blood stream? Why not just do it? You can spout off about it later at the pub, and feel righteous amid all the laughs and snickers.

__________________Sir, I have found you an argument; but I am not obliged to find you an understanding. (Samuel Johnson)

We're talking about the respect and consideration of not challenging people's beliefs. The distinction you're making does not change that.

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I'll put it to you another way, since you want to drag creationism and religion into the discussion.

I'm using it as an analogy. Those are useful in discussion, sometimes. Well, useful except to those who don't like their implications, of course.

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I'm a foul-mouthed atheist.

Welcome to the club, tabarnaque!

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Close friends of mine are devout Christians. Not bible-thumping evangelicals, but Christians nonetheless. One of these friends is offended by cursing. Personally, I think it's a silly thing to be offended over. But out respect for my friend, I do not curse when I am in her presence.

You don't go out of your way to curse in their presence, which is good. But if you slip a few times, hopefully you're not told you're a bigot who's dehumanising them and invalidating their experiences.

__________________"Yes. But we'll hit theirs as well. We have reserves. Attack!"

While I am firmly in the camp of calling people whatever they prefer and leaving it at that, I'm also in agreement that the stated penalty for "harassment" is too steep if it is applied uniformly every time someone says the wrong thing. But is it? Is it a minimum penalty? Would the person in question think it harassment if it's a misunderstanding? Would a case ever occur here? Would it not make a difference whether one misunderstands a situation or whether one, as the original poster implies he would, insists on it on the basis of some perceived notion of rightness and truth that overrides the ideas of others?

We're in a very abstract territory here, it seems. We're all presented at times with situations that make us uncomfortable, about which we would at least secretly want to make nasty comments. Sometimes those comments may be warranted, and sometimes not. Sometimes we understand what's going on and sometimes we don't. Both times, I think, it's likely they can be omitted without hardship. Why should one actually give a damn? If a person with a vagina wants to be called a man, how can you know what's going on in that mind, or that blood stream? Why not just do it? You can spout off about it later at the pub, and feel righteous amid all the laughs and snickers.

Silly question: does that logic apply to trans-racials and otherkin?

__________________"Yes. But we'll hit theirs as well. We have reserves. Attack!"

Perhaps the concept of sexes is hazier than previously conceived. Maybe it's the definitions that should be reconsidered, rather than attempting to force reality to fit the definitions we should make the definitions more flexible to describe reality?

Just because Ug and Grug perceived exactly two distinct sexes a hundred thousand years ago doesn't mean we're stuck with that forever, does it?

I'm not even sure what those are, nor whether there are laws and rules of terminology involved. I would, however, generally say that unless someone's peculiarity impinges on your life in some way, it's prudent to guess that there is something about it that you may not understand, and shut up about it.

__________________Sir, I have found you an argument; but I am not obliged to find you an understanding. (Samuel Johnson)

I'm not even sure what those are, nor whether there are laws and rules of terminology involved. I would, however, generally say that unless someone's peculiarity impinges on your life in some way, it's prudent to guess that there is something about it that you may not understand, and shut up about it.

Cool. That way I can say that I'm a british battlecruiser and people can pay to see me when I'm in harbour. And you can't tell me I'm not because that would be rude.

__________________"Yes. But we'll hit theirs as well. We have reserves. Attack!"

While I am firmly in the camp of calling people whatever they prefer and leaving it at that, I'm also in agreement that the stated penalty for "harassment" is too steep if it is applied uniformly every time someone says the wrong thing. But is it? Is it a minimum penalty? Would the person in question think it harassment if it's a misunderstanding? Would a case ever occur here? Would it not make a difference whether one misunderstands a situation or whether one, as the original poster implies he would, insists on it on the basis of some perceived notion of rightness and truth that overrides the ideas of others?

The link to the law was posted. Hell misgendering someone accidentally would not even fall under it. It is like how asking a coworker on a date is not sexual harassment. But constantly asking them and pressuring them to go out with you is.

Lets say it does, what are you calling white people that you are not calling black people or vice versa?

Well, if someone who's white as snow pretends to be black, and I tell them that they're speaking nonsense, am I being rude? Should I shut up and cater to that belief/claim? How about people who say they're polar bears?

At what point do we start valuing objective reality over belief?

__________________"Yes. But we'll hit theirs as well. We have reserves. Attack!"

Well, if someone who's white as snow pretends to be black, and I tell them that they're speaking nonsense, am I being rude? Should I shut up and cater to that belief/claim? How about people who say they're polar bears?

What is the person asking for specifically? What are they trying to get out of you with this identity? How specifically do you treat your white coworkers differently from your black ones?

I guess then you can simply refer to them as boy instead of using their name?

Not until the transition, they aren't. The difference between our positions should be obvious: you just ask them what they feel like; I rely on more objective measures.

Again, you don't know what a woman is and are fine with ignoring other measures, apparently because of your feelings.

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So if it's just part of it, why is that the only criterion you're using?

It isn't.

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Again, someone is making up my own position. That sounds like fun, given how often it's been done here.

Just because you don't know what you're saying, doesn't mean others don't know what you're saying.

__________________Circled nothing is still nothing.
"Nothing will stop the U.S. from being a world leader, not even a handful of adults who want their kids to take science lessons from a book that mentions unicorns six times." -UNLoVedRebel
Mumpsimus: a stubborn person who insists on making an error in spite of being shown that it is wrong

You don't go out of your way to curse in their presence, which is good. But if you slip a few times, hopefully you're not told you're a bigot who's dehumanising them and invalidating their experiences.

Of course not. And again, that's not what's being discussed. The OP wasn't lamenting over unintentional slips. Quite the opposite, actually.

And the regulation over which so much hand-wringing has occurred makes the distinction pretty clear:

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Intentional or repeated refusal to use an individual’s preferred name, pronoun or title.

If your coworker Bob decides to transition to become Roberta, and requests that you respect that, I don't think she is going to get offended if you unintentionally call her Bob a few times until you get used to it.

But if you get up in her grill over how gender should be defined every time she asks that you call her Roberta, then yeah, you are being a bigot and dehumanizing her.

Again, you don't know what a woman is and are fine with ignoring other measures, apparently because of your feelings.

Oh, the mirror argument! How effective it was in high school, and how effective it must be now!

No, I know what a woman is, and it has nothing to do with feeling.

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It isn't.

Spit it out, man. What are the criteria?

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Just because you don't know what you're saying, doesn't mean others don't know what you're saying.

Just repeating that I'm wrong by fiat is not convincing. Your insistence that I'm wrong is not an argument. Again, I know what I'm saying, even if it turns out to be wrong. Can you tell the difference between the two? Can you construct an actual argument, here?

__________________"Yes. But we'll hit theirs as well. We have reserves. Attack!"

People have been able to identify males and females on sight for millennia. You're doing it wrong.

There is a transwoman student in the department at the college where I teach. I don't know what she has or has not had done (I think she's around 25), but she is pretty convincingly "she", although it can be sometimes disconcerting when she is dressed in more masculine clothing or heard speaking. I was not sure for some time, due to the ambiguity and general "nonconformity".

Since she has a typically female name now, I am sure that many people who encounter her do not know that it was not the name she was given at birth. If I were to refer to her in speaking as "him/he", I could well be outing her to people to whom she would prefer not to be outed.

You talk about objective reality, but the objective reality is that at some point in time this individual chose to go forward presenting to the world and to their self in the form of a woman. I'm not sure what you gain by "challenging" that. Do you hope to convince her to return to presenting as male? If she suddenly throws down her bra and takes the scissors to her hair, does that make the world a better place?

__________________DoYouEverWonder - Engineers and architects don't have to design steel buildings not to collapse from gravity. They already conquered gravity when they built it.Polaris (wrt cluelessforum) - Bunch of sewer-chewing douche nozzles.

And the regulation over which so much hand-wringing has occurred makes the distinction pretty clear:

Yes. Intentional OR repeated. So it's against the law to not cater to people's beliefs about their gender.

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If your coworker Bob decides to transition to become Roberta, and requests that you respect that, I don't think she is going to get offended if you unintentionally call her Bob a few times until you get used to it.

But if you get up in her grill over how gender should be defined every time she asks that you call her Roberta, then yeah, you are being a bigot and dehumanizing her.

Because there is, of course, no middle ground.

And how is it bigoted or dehumanising? How are you defining those terms?

__________________"Yes. But we'll hit theirs as well. We have reserves. Attack!"

No, but there are certain visual cues which, if you happen to be sharing a locker room with someone, are extremely good indicators of sex.

(I might add that the same goes for maternity wards.)

And this is where, some years ago, I parted company with the orthodox transgender rights supporters. I'm all about being liberal and allowing people to live their lives the way they wish to live them. I supported the rights of people to present themselves as females even if they weren't really females. No problem. Takes all kinds to make a world.

However, reading about the phenomenon right here on these pages, I realized that wasn't enough for the hard liners. They insisted that that person who was clearly a biological male, really was actually a woman. She wasn't someone who thought she was a woman. She wasn't someone who felt like a woman. She wasn't someone who identified as a woman. By gum, she was, really and truly a woman, and must be treated by society as such in every way.

And most of the time, even that doesn't really cause problems, but there is a certain point where there has to be some reality that sets in. There are certain situations where it is unreasonable for everyone else to ignore the reality of what they see and instead treat someone based on their own psychological state. There have been many, many threads on those subjects, so I won't rehash them here. Anyone interested has seen them before. For the purposes of this thread, at least for now, I will simply say that the person who gave birth in Oregon the other day was a woman, regardless of how she felt about herself or how she lives most of her life. To say otherwise is to say that the word "woman" has no real meaning.

Originally Posted by Meadmaker

All non-sequiturs aside, the thing is that you don't have a "looser definition" of "woman" that excludes the fellow who just gave birth. You have no definition at all.

Give it a shot. Provide a definition of "woman" that meets the following conditions.

1. Includes transwomen
2. excludes transmen
3. Is not circular

But you already did provide a reasonable definition and already said you provide one of the key elements to them that make them a woman!

You know that being 'female' is not all there is to being a 'woman'. What is there to being a woman? In the societal context, which is exactly the context we're talking about right now, women wear dresses. Do all women wear dresses? Do women wear dresses all the time? No, so are they not women when they are not 'checking the box'? They can have children, except when they can't. They can wear makeup, expect when they don't. The definitions of genders are almost entirely societal constructs, expectations, and treatments. They have few if any hard ties to biological 'truth'. We no longer demand that men and women conform to these in order to be 'really men or women'. It's almost like the definitions of genders are more fluid mentally and socially than those asserting 'biological fact means I know this other person's gender more than they do and can tell them that politely.' Any given factor that one might use to say 'this is really a woman' can be absent in other women who are not trans, and we'd still call them women.

A woman lives as and is treated as a woman. A man lives as and is treated as a man. Sorry, but that's the way words work sometimes. Your desire for it to not be circular is misplaced in societal constructs.

__________________Circled nothing is still nothing.
"Nothing will stop the U.S. from being a world leader, not even a handful of adults who want their kids to take science lessons from a book that mentions unicorns six times." -UNLoVedRebel
Mumpsimus: a stubborn person who insists on making an error in spite of being shown that it is wrong

Oh, the mirror argument! How effective it was in high school, and how effective it must be now!

No, I know what a woman is, and it has nothing to do with feeling.

Spit it out, man. What are the criteria?

Just repeating that I'm wrong by fiat is not convincing. Your insistence that I'm wrong is not an argument. Again, I know what I'm saying, even if it turns out to be wrong. Can you tell the difference between the two? Can you construct an actual argument, here?

If you had not noticed, I've been using the mirror argument against you the entire time.

__________________Circled nothing is still nothing.
"Nothing will stop the U.S. from being a world leader, not even a handful of adults who want their kids to take science lessons from a book that mentions unicorns six times." -UNLoVedRebel
Mumpsimus: a stubborn person who insists on making an error in spite of being shown that it is wrong

There is a transwoman student in the department at the college where I teach. I don't know what she has or has not had done (I think she's around 25), but she is pretty convincingly "she", although it can be sometimes disconcerting when she is dressed in more masculine clothing or heard speaking. I was not sure for some time, due to the ambiguity and general "nonconformity".

Since she has a typically female name now, I am sure that many people who encounter her do not know that it was not the name she was given at birth.

Of course when one points out a general rule that applies to 99.7% of the population, some wise guy will point out that it isn't 100%, as if it matters to what the first person said.

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You talk about objective reality, but the objective reality is that at some point in time this individual chose to go forward presenting to the world and to their self in the form of a woman.

I've addressed exactly this sort of argument earlier. It's objective reality that people are afraid of elevators, but that does not mean that elevators being dangerous is objective reality. I suspect that you understood the distinction quite well before you posted that.

__________________"Yes. But we'll hit theirs as well. We have reserves. Attack!"

Oh, I noticed. I just hoped that you were not just being childish the whole time, and had an actual point to make. Now that you've admitted to trolling, I can safely ignore you.

It isn't childish to show that you're not arguing in good faith by doing the exact same in reverse.

The difference is, I actually do know what a woman is in the context you're not incorporating into your reasoning.

__________________Circled nothing is still nothing.
"Nothing will stop the U.S. from being a world leader, not even a handful of adults who want their kids to take science lessons from a book that mentions unicorns six times." -UNLoVedRebel
Mumpsimus: a stubborn person who insists on making an error in spite of being shown that it is wrong

It isn't childish to show that you're not arguing in good faith by doing the exact same in reverse.

When you're not arguing in good faith by using BS arguments, you're not showing that the other person is doing the same. Your posts reflect on you, not me.

And you have no idea whether I argue in good faith. I know I am. You think I'm not because I disagree with you, and no one could possibly reach a conclusion different from yours and be honest at the same time.

__________________"Yes. But we'll hit theirs as well. We have reserves. Attack!"

The issue goes beyond politeness and social roles. I have no problem being polite and calling people what they prefer to be called.

But what we are talking about in the present case is a person who was born female-sexed but actually is male-gnedered. Thats what a Transman is, yes? The underlying idea is that this person is well and truly a male and we in society should respect his dignity as a male. But then, this man goes and has a baby. How are we supposed to reconcile this? Are we supposed to suddenly think: "Well of course, some men can have babies, NBD."

This idea goes against everything we understand about biology and gender. The current generation of humans is going to have a really hard time actually considering someone to be a man if that man has given birth.

For me, personally, if I knew and interacted with such a person, I'd remain polite. But I can't help but think that such a situation undermines the fight for acceptance of trans people in larger society. It just furthers the notion that trans people are actually suffering from a mental illness. Maybe a few generations down, men having babies will be NBD, but in current society it's going to be an issue.

No, but there are certain visual cues which, if you happen to be sharing a locker room with someone, are extremely good indicators of sex.

Sure. Is there any controversy about the the idea that transmen are not unambiguously biologically male? I would think that's pretty well covered by the "trans" part.

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However, reading about the phenomenon right here on these pages, I realized that wasn't enough for the hard liners. They insisted that that person who was clearly a biological male, really was actually a woman. She wasn't someone who thought she was a woman. She wasn't someone who felt like a woman. She wasn't someone who identified as a woman. By gum, she was, really and truly a woman, and must be treated by society as such in every way.

We've historically conflated sex and gender, and as a consequence our language is littered with lots of words that do not clearly indicate one or the other. "Man" and "woman" can describe either sex or gender. If someone says she is a woman, I do not generally take that as an insistence that she is biologically female. Similarly, I don't see the need for a dick check in the men's room.

I think a pretty good trans-inclusive definition of "woman" would go something like "an adult, human female, or someone who exhibits the gender attributes (especially gender identity) traditionally associated with adult, human females". That's non-circular and does not evacuate the word of all meaning.

It isn't childish to show that you're not arguing in good faith by doing the exact same in reverse.

Yes, tyr, it actually is.

__________________"As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose -- that it may violate property instead of protecting it -- then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder. Political questions will always be prejudicial, dominant, and all-absorbing. There will be fighting at the door of the Legislative Palace, and the struggle within will be no less furious." - Bastiat, The Law

It just furthers the notion that trans people are actually suffering from a mental illness.

It is a mental disorder. But there's nothing wrong with that. Plenty of people suffer from such disorders. Hell, as far as I know, I probably suffer from OCD myself. I know a few people with anxiety problems. We do support people with such disorders in various ways such as medication or, in the case of trans people and should they want to, transition.

But the risk in public opinion you allude to is not that they have a mental disorder, but that the entire idea of transgenderism is a hoax. Such a thing would be far more damaging to trans people than pronouns.

__________________"Yes. But we'll hit theirs as well. We have reserves. Attack!"

When you're not arguing in good faith by using BS arguments, you're not showing that the other person is doing the same. Your posts reflect on you, not me.

And you have no idea whether I argue in good faith. I know I am. You think I'm not because I disagree with you, and no one could possibly reach a conclusion different from yours and be honest at the same time.

As I already said in the post you quoted, the main difference is that I know what a woman is in context, and your BS argument doesn't. It in fact denies such a context by assertion. That's why you are not arguing in good faith. All your criticisms of the form of my argument apply at least as well to yours. The conclusions of my argument have the benefit of being true though.

If you think my argument is BS because it echoed your form, then the mirror argument served well to show your argument by your own standards is BS.

Originally Posted by Ziggurat

Yes, tyr, it actually is.

No, Zigg, it actually isn't, no matter how many times you've also fallen into that 'childish' trap too.

Again, context matters.

__________________Circled nothing is still nothing.
"Nothing will stop the U.S. from being a world leader, not even a handful of adults who want their kids to take science lessons from a book that mentions unicorns six times." -UNLoVedRebel
Mumpsimus: a stubborn person who insists on making an error in spite of being shown that it is wrong